Arco, Idaho

We left Red Rock RV Park Monday morning the 27th of June headed for Arco, Idaho.  Arco is the closest town to “Craters of the Moon National Monument”.  It is about 18 miles east of the park.  Actually we went to the campground at the monument and were going to stay there but just driving through the campground was a nightmare.  There were large chunks or boulders of Lava next to the road and the turns were really tight.  We circled through and came back to Arco to the Mountain View RV Park.  This was a nice RV Park.  It is a Good Sam Park.  Arco is located in a high plain dessert.  It isn’t a very pretty place but the climate was cool and dry.  On the 28th we drove by to “Craters of the Moon” and I took a few pictures.  This isn’t a place I would highly recommend, but if it isn’t too far out of the way, it is different and unusual.  As you will see in the pictures it is a lava field that covers 750,000 acres.  The lava flow didn’t come from volcano or volcanoes.  It was actually formed from long fissures across the Snake River Plain.  The amazing thing is that this occurred about 2000 years ago and geologists say it will happen again.

 

Gage and I walked to the top of a large Cinder Cone.  I don’t know how high up it was but it was a steep 1/2 mile walk.  I made several stops on the way up just to catch my breath.  This is a picture looking back down to the parking lot from the top.

These are dwarf Monkeyflowers and they were just growing out of the loose lava rocks.  The lava rocks were just covered with these flowers.  There didn’t appear to be any soil at all.

Yeh, still behind

Ok we,re still in Yellowstone, well not really just in my blog.  So here are a few more pictures.

Baby Buffalo.  Buffalo were abundant in the park and they had several little ones.

The Buffalo were all over the road.  We spent 1 1/2 hours going 14 miles one morning.  The Buffalo were on the move from one part of the park to another part of the park.  It was a combination of people stopping their cars to take pictures and the Buffalo being in the road and you couldn’t get around them.

This is Lake Yellowstone.

We also got to see a pair of Moose about 2 or 3 miles from our RV Park.

On one of the days we didn’t go into Yellowstone we went to see the Upper and Lower Mesa Falls.  Most of the water that goes over the Falls comes from a spring called Big Springs.  This is a picture of the Springs.

It is hard to believe that this spring could make this.

This is the Lower Falls.

This is the Upper Falls.  This on looks like a miniature Niagara Falls.

When we left the Red Rock RV Park we moved to Arco, Idaho which is about 18 miles from Crater of the Moon National Monument.  I am going to put this in a separate blog so it won’t take so long to download this blog.

Catch up time

Even I can’t believe how long I have gone without an entry.  I guess part of it had to do with getting over the trip back from Aransas Pass.  It didn’t go well and that’s a very large understatement.  It started with us going by Camping World in New Braunfels, Texas to pick up a new washer/dryer.  That went without a problem except for getting it into the Motor Home.  The guy at Camping World said he had a bad back so I did most of the lifting but I didn’t pull anything or hurt myself - so no problem.  It was when we got on the road that the trouble started.  It was a Sunday and I have never seen so much traffic.  Not even through the week.  We later decided they were probably having the NBA playoffs in San Antonio.  We fought the traffic all the way up above Waco and decided not to go through Dallas on I-35.  We normally go through Fort Worth but were headed to the Durant, Oklahoma area to see my oldest son, Thad and his family.  I ask Twila to see if we could find a way around Dallas on some two lane roads even if it was farther.  We ended up going through Corsicana, Texas on Hwy 31 and that’s where things went to Hell in a hand basket.  I was following my GPS which is not a Truck GPS.  Long story, short, I ended up at a railroad trestle  that didn’t even have a height sign on it.  We both looked at it and thought we could get under it OK.  WRONG!!!!!!!!  I was going real slow when my front air conditioner hit.  I thought I probably may have cracked the housing so I released the air in my air bags and it cleared.  I forgot that my dome satellite dish was taller than the air conditioner so I got it too.  Turned out the air conditioner fan was pushed back about 4 inches.   Sad to say in a matter of about 2 minutes I had done about $3,000 worth of damage.  I went to Wades RV in Sapulpa, Oklahoma the next day and got the air conditioner replaced.  They put on a 15,000 BTU with a heat pump instead of a 13,500 that was on it.  We had been wanting a new Trav’ler 1000 satellite dish but hadn’t planned on getting it this quick.  I ordered one over the internet and got it for $1,119 plus $59 for freight and put it on myself.  We love it.  We got a new dual receiver DVR from Dish Network and now we can watch anything on any satellite in the front or the back of the coach at the same time.  Before we had to watch the same thing in the back that was on in the front and if we changed channels it might have to switch to another satellite.  Nuff said.  Stupidity can be expensive.

But still, live is good.  I celebrated my 70th birthday on the 21st of May with a number of good friends.  I got to see my oldest grandson graduate from high school and we are now back on the road in Idaho.  We left Oklahoma the 18th of June with our good friends Jack and Barbara Miller and Gage Prough, Twila’s grandson and my Nephew.  Gage is 16 and this is his first long trip with us.  Jack and Barbara have a fifth wheel travel trailer that they our pulling with a 3/4 ton Ford Diesel Pickup. 

We spent 2 nights on the road in Wal-mart parking lots in Goodland, Kansas and Rock Springs, Wyoming heading for Red Rock RV Park close to Island Park, Idaho.  We stayed a week there and went to Yellowstone National Park among other things in the area.  Red Rock is about 5 miles off Hwy 20 which is about 20 miles from the West Entrance to Yellowstone.  Just a few pictures to show the setting at the RV Park.

We saw so much in Yellowstone so I will only put in a few pictures.

The picture on top of this is from Mammoth Springs.  The entire side of the hill is covered with mineral deposits from the hot springs on the top of the hill.

Still lots of snow in the mountain areas and yes that’s Gage.

Yep, that’s Old Faithful.  The two on the left with the pink shirt and blue shirt are Twila and Barbara.

This is getting way too long so I will stop and pick up again in the next posting.  I will try to catch up to where we are now which is in Arco, Idaho, but that’s for next time.